Down by the Lake
by TheGirlWhoWrites91
Summary: After another run in with James, Lily finds Severus down by the lake and the two friends get to talking home truths in the face of their differing hearts desires.


She found him at the lakeside, of course. She smiled a sad smile when she spotted his hunched form. His shoulders were pulled in tight, defensive, his body was perfectly still and the breeze gently tugged at his hair as if trying to coax him out of his solemnity.

Lily had brought a bar of Honeyduke's chocolate with her, the only remedy for bruises to both skin and pride. Treading carefully, so as not to disturb the quiet, she walked down to meet him. Severus looked up as she got within a few feet and she could see his eyes were red and full of hurt. He quickly turned away and she allowed herself one internal steadying breath before she sat down next to him.

"I brought you chocolate, Severus, but I hoped you might want to share it." She tried to keep her voice light and jovial. He hunched his shoulders down even further but said nothing. Lily looked out over the water, considering what to say next.

"It's from Honeyduke's, of course. I got it on our last trip to Hogsmead, resisted it all this ti-"

"Why did you come here?" He interrupted, not looking up from the water, his voice a low whinge like that of a small child having a sulk. She watched him as he stared out, then spotted the red mark above his eyebrow that the hex he had not been quick enough to defend must have left. The hex that had flown from the end of James' wand. She took a sharp intake of breath and moved her hand up to his face, thinking to brush the hair out of his eyes but his hand shot out and caught her tightly on the wrist. She let out a small shocked noise and he let go as suddenly as he had grabbed hold and finally turned to face her.

"Just leave me alone, Evans." She had never seen him so upset before, never heard him call her by her second name, his eyes were hooded and he was ghostly pale.

"Severus, please, I just -"

"What? You just wanted to see the damage he left so you can go back and tell him, a job well done?" He reached his hand up to the red mark and pressed his fingers lightly against it, wincing. "An inch down and he would have taken my eye, tell him to aim better next time - 9 out of ten."

She sat staring at him, her mouth slightly open, staggered. His eyes lost a little of their fire and he looked away again, clearly a little staggered at his own boldness. He had never raised his voice to Lily before, never spoken to her cruelly. She was the only one who treated him kindly, he would have done nothing to risk losing that. He expected her to get up and leave now, never to return, but she sat quietly, he could feel her eyes on him. His face reddened in shame.

"Severus..." Lily eventually managed, though she could feel her eyes filling with tears she knew she had to say something. "I'm sorry, truly..."

"What do you see in him, Lily? Really?" He summoned whatever emotional strength he had and turned to face her again. She looked confused, hurt, her eyebrows knitted tight.

"I don't understand what you mean..." She muttered and finally looked away to stare out over the lake, Severus continued to look at her, seeing her cheeks blush at his accusation.

"I've seen how you look at him. I've seen how he looks at you, but then so many boys in our year look at you like that, of course they do, you're beautiful, it's no surprise." She blushed harder at his compliment albeit buried within his judgement, "But you..." Here, he paused, could not find the words to articulate what his heart did not want to hear said aloud.

"I can't help how I feel, Severus, I know that's a cop out. He...he's not like that with me..." Here, she hesitated. She knew that sounded pathetic.

"He's a bully, Lily. He's got it in him to be cruel, even though he might be the nice guy when he's with you but when he's got his little fan club of friends with him...Does that now worry you? I mean...I know it's just me - "

Now, she interrupted him, catching him a sharp slap on the arm, "No! Severus, don't say that. He is a bully, okay? I hate what he does to you, I tell him to leave you alone, that's not the James I know. You're...I mean...I'm your...We're..." She sighed deeply and pulled her knees close up to her chest and buried her head on her arms folded in front of her. She didn't cry but her eyes stung all the same.

Severus sat very still and quiet next to her, looking at her auburn hair that tumbled down her back and over her arms shielding her face from him completely. He knew he'd gone too far, he knew she felt nothing for him but pity and maybe a little fondness had grown over the years she'd been kind. He was a swat of a Slytherin, a pale greasy-haired social outcast. James was a tall, dark and handsome Quidditch seeker from Lily's house, Gryffindor. There was no competition? Severus had never been stupid enough to think he'd ever had a chance, but it didn't alter his feelings for Lily or how much it cut him deep to see her look at James the way he knew he looked at her. Her friendship over all this time had been so pure, the happiest thing about his time at Hogwarts. He was ruining it now, he knew.

Lily suddenly sat up very straight, flicking the hair off her shoulders, sniffed loudly and stared out over the lake. Severus could see that her jaw was set in that tight way it did when she was concentrating hard on a text book, as the two of them studied together in the library. A smile broke the hard line of his drawn, anxious mouth. Even now, Lily could still make him smile. She turned to him, very much not smiling, her bright green eyes piercing as they locked gaze.

"You, Severus, are one of my closest friends. I wouldn't have thought that was possible once upon a time, but I see so much of myself in you. I see a lot of myself in James too. Just in a different way. He can be cruel, but you are not blameless either." Her features soften and that small sad smile creeps in again.

"I think you could have been friends, you know? In a different life. You're brilliant, Severus. So is he, you both just need...time. This world hasn't finished molding you yet but one thing you both have in common? You both think you're the ones molding the world." She pulled the chocolate bar from the pocket of her robes and placed it in front of Severus, then she reached her hand up to his face again, slowly, (tentatively rather than cautiously, he was relived to see) and brushed a strand of hair from his eyes.

"It's healing. Eat the chocolate, then come and find me in the library. We have studying to do." She rose, gracefully to standing, smiled down at Severus who sat staring wistfully up at her and then, with one final glance at the lake, she turned and walked briskly back up the slope and to the castle. Severus watched her go until she disappeared from sight. He touched his fingers to his bruise again and noticed the pain was wearing off. With fingers that shook slightly (from the cold, from the shock of the fight, from everything that Lily had said) he picked up the Honeyduke's bar that Lily had resisted all this time. Their last Hogsmead trip had been months ago. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes, feeling the breeze picking up now, as the afternoon wore on, blowing in across the lake.

Severus tried to imagine a different life. In which him and James were friends. It felt like an impossible ask. Instead he imagined a different world in which James had never come to Hogwarts. In which, perhaps, Severus had been sorted into Gryffindor. In which Lily looked at him the way he looked at her. A world in which all Lily's smile were reserved for him and he never saw pity in her beautiful eyes. Hopeless he knew, but a life in which Lily requested her close friend, Severus, to join her in study in the library and share a bar of Honeyduke's chocolate with her could be, and would have to be, good enough.

He opened his eyes, the lake was less still now, ripples from the quickenening breeze brought the surface to life. Severus stood, tucking the bar into his robe pocket and set off back to the castle to find Lily, his dearest friend, his forever and always.


End file.
